


is it bullying if it's good for you

by syriala



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misplaced Guilt, Stiles Stilinski is a Little Shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 11:54:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17406428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syriala/pseuds/syriala
Summary: Stiles is not above bribery and extortion, everyone knows that. What they haven't quite accepted yet, is that Stiles is also not above bullying people into having a better life. Especially if those people are Derek.





	is it bullying if it's good for you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Areiton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/gifts).



> This was mainly inspired by one scene from 'The Kissing Booth' and a lot from a talk with Areiton.

Stiles isn’t really sure what happened. One moment he is walking towards Derek’s kitchen and the next he’s on the floor, something sticky in his eye and Derek’s frantic hands hovering over his face.

It turns out the hole in the wall, which serves as a doorway to the kitchen for the lazier pack members, isn’t as structurally sound as Derek likes to think. A stone has fallen right in the moment Stiles was underneath it and now there is a nasty gash on his temple.

It isn’t life-threatening, hell, it isn’t even that deep, but it is throbbing and like all good head-wounds, it is bleeding more than it really should.

Derek herds Stiles over to the couch, with a firm “Don’t move” before he runs off to the bathroom.

Stiles wonders why Derek even has things like disinfectant and band-aids in the loft, it’s not like any of the wolves ever need it, but then he’s hissing as Derek presses some gauze to the wound.

It’s really not bad, Stiles can tell by how quickly Derek calms down, but he insists on dressing it anyway and who is Stiles to tell Derek no. So he sits there, as quietly as he can, and he lets Derek manhandle his head around, lets him check him over more times than is strictly necessary, and he continues to tell Derek that no, he’s not in pain, and no, he doesn’t have a concussion.

Stiles just managed to calm Derek down enough that his hands aren’t shaking anymore, when the door flies open and Scott stalks in, eyes already flaring red, no doubt in response to the smell of Stiles’ blood.

“What happened?” he demands to know and then his eyes fall on Derek. “Did you do this to him?” he menacingly asks, and Stiles jumps up from the couch.

“Scott, don’t be stupid. Of course he didn’t!”

“Did you hit him?” Scott asks Derek, ignoring Stiles completely, and Stiles can hear Derek’s teeth grinding together, he’s clenching his jaw so hard.

“No,” he growls out.

“Did you hurt him?” Scott asks next and Stiles rolls his eyes, because this is stupid.

Derek would never hurt him.

“No,” Derek says again, though he sounds unsure and Scott’s eyes flare again as he takes a menacing step towards Derek.

“It was a lie,” he hisses out and then looks at Stiles. “What did he do to you?”

And Stiles knows, can practically see what Derek is thinking about. All the times he pushed Stiles up against a wall, the time he smashed Stiles’ head into his steering wheel, all the times Stiles got hurt because he was with Derek, was with the pack and this is just not right.

“He never hurt me!” Stiles calls out and Derek jerks back as if Stiles has hit him.

“Stiles,” Derek starts, and he sounds sad and broken and everything Stiles never wants for him.

“No, Derek. _You_ never hurt me,” he reiterates but before he can make sure that Derek listens to him, that he believes him, Scott wraps his hand around Stiles’ wrist.

“Stiles, you are bleeding _right now_.”

“It was an accident,” Stiles tells him, but Scott doesn’t seem inclined to believe him.

He pulls Stiles away from Derek, out of the loft and the last thing Stiles sees of Derek is his hunched-up form on the couch, hands clenching and unclenching on his tights.

~*~*~

Stiles is not very good at taking orders. So when Scott tells him to stay the hell away from Derek, Stiles shows up at the loft a day later.

“What do you want?” Derek growls at him, arms crossed in front of his chest and looking as unwelcome as he can manage.

“It’s Thursday, dude,” Stiles says as if that explains everything.

Going by the deep frown on Derek’s face it really doesn’t.

“Thursday is our unofficial movie day,” Stiles says, and he sees Derek’s face soften for a second before he puts the frown firmly back into place.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Derek tells him and Stiles huffs.

“Why? Why the hell am I not supposed to be here?”

“Because you’ll get hurt again,” Derek suddenly calls out and Stiles can see how afraid he is that Scott was right.

“I get hurt weather I am with you or not,” Stiles tries. “But with you I have a better chance of surviving whatever it is that hurt me.”

“ _I_ hurt you.”

“You really don’t, Derek,” Stiles says, and Derek’s eyes fall to the cut on his temple.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Stiles immediately says, but Derek shrugs his shoulders and turns away from Stiles.

“I need you to leave now,” Derek says and Stiles’ huffs.

“Not happening.”

He expects Derek to fight him on that, expects him to turn around and get right up in his face, but Derek just continues to walk away from him.

Still, Stiles’ doesn’t leave.

~*~*~

The next time Stiles is over at Derek’s loft, he trips over the uneven concrete floor and scraps his palms when he hits the ground. It stings, more so than the cut on his temple had, and Derek shows up a second later, obviously summoned by the smell of Stiles’ blood.

There is that by now familiar look on his face, like he’s so sorry he can’t even put it into words, like he wants to scream and yell at Stiles to get out, like he wants to curl up in a corner and maybe cry a bit. It’s a very complex expression.

“Stiles,” Derek starts, but Stiles won’t have it.

“You know, if you had a carpet, these things wouldn’t happen to me,” Stiles cuts him off, before Derek can start in on the by now usual rant and Derek glares him into the ground.

“I’m just saying,” Stiles says with a shrug when Derek doesn’t verbally respond to him.

Stiles gets hurt again, in the loft. He takes a corner too sharply, brushes up against the wall, and cuts his arm on a metal beam that sticks out of it. This one is fairly deep, and now Stiles is grateful for the first aid kit Derek keeps in the loft.

“If you would just stay away,” Derek says as he cleans the cut, “you wouldn’t get hurt all the damn time.”

“If you had an actual functional apartment and not this shithole, I wouldn’t get hurt either,” Stiles snaps back because by now he’s tired of these arguments.

Derek keeps trying to push him away and Stiles will continue to refuse to be pushed away. It’s a stalemate.

Stiles curses for almost three whole minutes the next time he’s at the loft and bangs his shin into the rubble Derek still hasn’t cleaned away from the hole in the wall.

“Stiles,” Derek sighs and Stiles throws his hands up, shin still painfully throbbing, though this time at least, there’s no blood.

“If you would just get your shit together, and actually clean up every now and then around here, I wouldn’t keep running into these things! They are not even supposed to be here anymore. God, Derek, get your life together!” Stiles yells at him before he throws himself onto the couch, which croaks ominously at him.

Stiles throws Derek a _look_ and then immediately regrets it when Derek seems hurt.

“You think it’s gonna get better when I clean up?” Derek asks and Stiles can’t parse out his tone.

“Well, the danger of me running into metal beams and getting hit by rocks from the hole in your wall would definitely be cut down if you would just patch it up,” Stiles says and rubs his shin. “Plus, my shins would really appreciate it.”

“You should just stop coming around,” Derek snaps out, and Stiles rolls his eyes.

They have this argument so often, it doesn’t even make an impact on Stiles anymore.

“Not happening, dude, and you know it,” Stiles says as he leans back and closes his eyes. At least like this Stiles can pretend that Derek isn’t looking like a kicked puppy.

~*~*~

Stiles is not going to panic. He is not. He’s sure there is a very reasonable explanation for this. There has to be. There’s no way Derek just up and left without a word. And it just doesn’t make sense that the villain of the week cleaned out Derek’s loft, right. Right?

Stiles hands are shaking so badly, he can barely dial Derek’s number on his phone. And then it beeps and beeps again, and Stiles presses his fingers to his mouth, because if Derek doesn’t pick up right this second, Stiles is going to lose his shit.

“What?” Derek gruffly asks when the line finally connects, and Stiles can’t help the relieved giggles that spill out.

“You’re alive,” he breathes, and he can hear Derek’s frown over the phone.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because your loft is empty? And you’re not here?”

“I have a new place,” Derek tells him and that. Stiles needs a second to digest that.

“A new place? A new place as in far away from here? A new place how, Derek?”

“I’ll text you the address,” Derek says right before he hangs up on him.

Like promised, Stiles phone chimes a second later with a text message. Stiles hesitates for a long moment to open it, because what if Derek finally just moved away. What if he realized that staying around wasn’t the best thing? What if he thought this was the only way to get Stiles to stop coming around?

But Derek is willing to share his new address, so he is clearly expecting Stiles to drop by sooner or later, and Stiles finally opens the message. And then he laughs for a good whole minute, because the address Derek sent him is still in Beacon Hills.

Stiles immediately hops into his jeep, and when he comes to a stop in front of Derek’s _new house_ , apparently, he laughs some more. This is ridiculous. Derek will be expected to come to a welcome to the neighborhood party, there will be meetings and the housewives will drool after him every time Derek goes for a run.

It’s ridiculous and funny, and the last thing Stiles ever expected.

“Are you coming in?” Derek asks from the porch, he has a goddamn porch now, before Stiles even makes it out of the car.

“What the hell, dude?” Stiles wants to know as he stumbles out of the jeep.

But Derek is already walking back into the house, _his_ house, and Stiles can do nothing but follow.

He takes his shoes off when he’s in the hallway, because this seems like a no shoe place, and when he gets deeper into the house, he feels like he’s in a wrong movie.

Stiles can tell that the place is still in the early stages, but Derek has curtains, and carpets and goddamn throw pillows on his new couch and Stiles doesn’t know what to say.

“Dude,” he breathes out when Derek sits down on the couch, which doesn’t groan or creak at all, and Derek has the audacity to smile at him.

“What is going on here?” Stiles asks and Derek shrugs.

“It was your idea, wasn’t it?”

Stiles floundered for a second before he said: “I suggested you patch up the wall and get a carpet or two!”

Derek throws a pointed glance at the soft, plush carpet on the ground and Stiles laughs out loud.

~*~*~

It takes Stiles’ several weeks to bring it up again. He drops by Derek’s house almost daily now, and not once in all this time he comes away with a new injury. He continues to stumble on nothing and the still takes corners too sharply, but now there’s the softest carpet to cushion his fall and there are no metal beams to slice him open.

Stiles doesn’t really care, but he loves the way Derek seems to lose a bit of the weight on his shoulders every time Stiles’ doesn’t end up bleeding after one of those incidents.

Derek smiles more, Stiles has even heard him laugh once or twice, and he continues to wear soft sweatpants and even softer shirts and Stiles wants to die a little bit every time that happens.

“So, tell me,” Stiles says one evening and dugs his toes into Derek’s thigh. “Did you move because of my physical well-being?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Derek says and softly wraps his hand around Stiles’ ankle.

“Mhm,” Stiles hums in agreement and snuggles deeper into the amazingly comfortable couch.

~*~*~

Derek is getting better, steadily, but he still takes on guilt and responsibilities that aren’t his to take and Stiles wants to yell and scream and hit Scott over the head every time it happens.

But Derek is out with them, yet again, when a rogue omega comes into town to challenge Scott for the alpha power. Scott has made it very clear that Derek is not part of his pack, that he has no business being there during pack matters, and yet Derek keeps showing up to these things.

He could be at home, cozy and safe in his new house, curled up on the couch like Stiles knows he loves, but instead he’s in the clearing with Scott’s pack.

Derek keeps trying to protect Scott’s pack members by bodily stepping in the way and Stiles _has had it with that bullshit_.

So he does the same, steps into the way when the omega slashes out, aiming for Derek, and Stiles can feel the burn of his claws on his arms, but mostly he notices how Derek roars and how his eyes flare blue in a way they haven’t in a long time.

Stiles doesn’t quite remember how he ends up in Derek’s bathroom afterwards, but Derek is kneeling in front of him, gently bandaging his arm, and there is that familiar frown on Derek’s face.

The one that so clearly screams _this is all my fault_ and Stiles raises a hand to smooth it over Derek’s forehead.

“You can’t keep getting hurt because of me,” Derek mutters, and Stiles sighs.

“If you wouldn’t show up to these fights that have nothing to do with you, then I wouldn’t,” he gives back and Derek jerks back.

“They are _pack_ ,” Derek says, and it hurts Stiles to do this, but he shakes his head.

“They are not. Scott doesn’t want you as his beta.”

Derek flinches at that, but Stiles goes on.

“And you can’t keep feeling guilty, Derek,” he says as he cups Derek’s face in his hands. “I know you think it’s your fault, all of it; Scott getting bitten and the nemeton and _everything_ but it’s not. And as long as you don’t understand that this has nothing to do with you anymore, as long as you keep showing up to fights you have no business being in, I’ll be there. And I’ll keep continue to get hurt, because _I care_.”

Derek looks like he’s cut open, like Stiles’ word sliced right into him, but Stiles is not going to take them back. Derek needs to hear this, and he needs to finally understand that there are people who care about him.

~*~*~

The next time some supernatural shit goes down, Derek doesn’t show up.

“Where is he?” Scott asks, almost growls around his fangs, and Stiles shrugs.

“Far away from here, I hope,” he mutters, and he grimaces when Scott throws him a hurt look.

“We need him here!”

“If you needed him so badly to fight for you, you should acknowledge him as pack, don’t you think,” Stiles snaps out, and doesn’t back down when Scott’s eyes flash at him.

He might be an alpha, but Stiles is just human. He aligns himself with Scott because he thinks it’s right, because Scott is his best friend. Not because Scott is his alpha and he better learn that quickly.

Despite Derek not being there, the fight is over quickly, and Stiles came away from it with only a few shallow wounds. Stiles makes his way to Derek’s house as soon as he can, and he isn’t particularly surprised to see Derek pacing in the living-room.

“Stiles,” he breathes out as soon as Stiles steps into the room, and he crowds close to Stiles checking him over for injuries.

“It’s all good,” Stiles promises him, but Derek doesn’t seem convinced, running his hands all over Stiles’ body.

“Not coming to a fight makes me nervous,” Derek admits and Stiles’ grabs his shoulders.

“I promise I will come by after every fight, but you can’t come to one again,” Stiles tells him and then smiles brightly at Derek when he nods.

“What?” Derek asks, and Stiles can tell he wants to sound gruff and grumpy, but it comes across as mostly fond.

“I totally bullied you into a healthier life-style,” Stiles declares, and it takes Derek a second, but then he groans.

“I can’t believe this,” he mutters, but he’s smiling slightly, and Stiles dares to wrap his arms around Derek’ neck.

“My physical well-being is so important to you that you moved, and don’t even deny it!”

“This is totally going to your head, isn’t it?” Derek asks but he noses at Stiles’ cheek as he says it.

“Maybe,” Stiles admits, but what’s getting to him mostly, is the open and easy way Derek carries himself around Stiles now, how he indulges in the little things, and how he’s trying so hard to let his life not be consumed by misplaced guilt.

 _That’s_ what gets to Stiles.

“I’m glad I bullied you into this,” Stiles whispers and then gently brushes his lips against Derek’s.

“Me, too,” he replies before he surges forward, claiming Stiles’ mouth in a much more passionate kiss and Stiles makes a happy sound in the back of his throat.

He will forever be smug about this.


End file.
